A Guardian correspondent’s sobering account of the US betrayal of Ukraine – and the possible reasons behind it
24 Aug 2026
American presidents have struggled to get the measure of Vladimir Putin. When George W Bush met him in 2001, he reported that he had “looked the man in the eye”, got a “sense of his soul” and found him “trustworthy”. Barack Obama thought Putin was making a mistake with his interventions in Ukraine and Syria, but didn’t do much about it. Joe Biden backed Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion, yet his fear that Putin would reach for the nuclear button if backed into a corner made him risk averse. He worried about the impact of the sort of long-range strikes against Russian territory that Kyiv is now launching on a daily basis.
This caution frustrated Ukrainians to the point that they looked forward to Donald Trump shaking things up after he won re-election. Be careful what you wish for: the returning president thought his rapport with Putin would be enough to get Russia to sign up to an immediate ceasefire. In Trump’s head it was President Zelenskyy, fighting a war he was bound to lose, who was the problem.
This led to the betrayal that gives Guardian correspondent Luke Harding’s book its title. Instead of increasing the pressure on Moscow, the new administration set about abandoning Ukraine. In the UN General Assembly, the US voted with the dregs of Russia’s supporters against a resolution condemning its aggression (even China abstained). Trump denounced his predecessor, Biden, for the support given to Ukraine, exaggerated its value (claiming it was $350bn when it was close to $70bn) and demanded privileged access to Ukraine’s mineral wealth as a form of repayment. Then came the greatest indignity of all as Zelenskyy was baited in the Oval Office, with JD Vance accusing him of disrespecting the president, after he had merely tried to correct falsehoods about how his country was coping with the war. He was ushered out of the White House and subjected to further denunciations. Intelligence was even cut off to Ukraine’s frontline forces for a short but critical period.
As Zelenskyy was being ambushed in front of the world’s press, Harding was in Odessa, visiting a clinic that had been hit by a Russian drone
Trump’s delusions about Putin persisted. Later that year he invited him to Alaska for a summit, where he was treated with extraordinary deference, in the mistaken belief that he was prepared to compromise. The only compromise Putin had in mind involved Ukraine handing over its territory without a fight. (Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, is still denying Russian claims that this was agreed in principle at the summit.) In any case, the meeting was a failure, with Trump left irritated by one of Putin’s long disquisitions on the history of Russian-Ukrainian relations. It ended before lunch.
Harding demonstrates Trump’s betrayal less through accounts of negotiations and summits than in his reporting from Ukrainian cities under constant attack from the air. As Zelenskyy was being ambushed in front of the world’s press, Harding was in Odessa, visiting a clinic that had been hit by an Iranian-designed Russian Shahed drone. As she viewed the wreckage of the gutted children’s clinic in which she worked, Olena Palsh lamented: “We fashioned it with love. The work of five years was destroyed in an instant.” Harding tells many such stories of the suffering and devastation inflicted by Putin on a country he considers to be a natural part of Russia.
In this way, he creates a sobering chronicle of a long and vicious conflict. He is skilled at describing the individuals caught up in events, including Ri Chol-nam, a North Korean soldier who was surprised to find himself fighting for Russia, and for whom the shame of being captured by the Ukrainians led to a suicide attempt. The wider context is also deftly conveyed, with chapters on how China is trying to make the most of the situation and how Putin seeks to intimidate Europeans, sabotaging internet cables on the seabed or flying drones into their airspace.
The villains at the core of the book are undoubtedly Trump and Putin. Harding discusses the question of whether Trump might himself be a Russian asset. Is it just that he enjoys the company of tyrants and envies their supreme power, or do they have embarrassing kompromat that he wants to ensure doesn’t see the light of day (though admittedly this is a man who seems to know no shame)? Harding concludes with a question in the subjunctive: “If Trump were a Russian agent, what exactly would he do differently?”
Yet now Putin seems disappointed by Trump, for he has not delivered the Ukrainian surrender he sought. Which leads to a different question: given Trump’s readiness to accommodate Putin, how come the Russian leader has been unable to make the compromises that would have allowed him to close the deal? It’s a shame that Harding is no longer allowed into his old stomping ground of Moscow, where his contacts might have helped him to explore the biggest puzzle: why Putin persists with a futile and costly war he can’t win.
“If Trump were a Russian agent, what exactly would he do differently?”
Krasnov dreams of going to Kyiv; as a guest of conquering emperor putler, together with the scum of the earth : Jinping, Fat Boy Kim, Modi, Ayatollah Arsehole and several hand-picked Ukraine-hating vermin from his cabinet. Plus of course Krasnov Jr.
Oleksii Fokardi :
Professor Michael Clark: Europe Is Heading Toward a Militarized Confrontation with Russia.
British military analyst Professor Michael Clark warns: Russia is already mobilized and preparing for conflict, while Europe is still trying to convince itself that it can be avoided.
“In my opinion, we are heading toward a militarized confrontation with Russia.
Can we emerge victorious? We are 10 to 12 times richer than Russia. Together with the U.S., we are about 20 times richer.
We have significantly more warships and aircraft. Collectively, our ground forces are also more numerous.
But they are mobilized. We are not.
They have a strictly centralized, dictatorial system of government. We have 27 governments in the EU and dozens of NATO member states, each of which makes its own decisions.
They are mobilized—we are not.
They are ready for conflict—we are not.
And we’re trying to pretend that this won’t happen.
Maybe I’m blowing the situation out of proportion. Every week I ask myself: Am I taking this too seriously? Am I sounding the alarm too much?
And every week I come to the same conclusion: no.
Objectively speaking, the situation is deteriorating and becoming increasingly tense.”
There will be no direct military confrontation with mafia land. Not as long as the Nazis are not able to defeat Ukraine. All this talk was created to scare the usual jellyfish and marshmallows. Thus, this fear is designed to discourage them from sending what’s needed to Ukraine, thinking they might need the stuff themselves, which makes me laugh, because they would never fight. They would roll over like a dog playing dead.
Roman Sheremeta :
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have canceled their planned trip to Kyiv because of “heavy russian air strikes on the city.”
Witkoff and Kushner have traveled to Moscow eight times for meetings with Putin.
But when it comes to visiting Kyiv, russian air strikes suddenly make the trip too dangerous.
Meanwhile, presidents and prime ministers from a dozen European countries have visited Kyiv over the past several days — despite those very same russian attacks.
This tells you something important about American diplomacy under Trump.
For months, we have been told that Witkoff and Kushner are trying to broker peace between russia and Ukraine. Yet the people supposedly acting as intermediaries repeatedly travel to Moscow, meet with Putin, listen to russia’s demands – and cannot even bring themselves to travel to the capital of the country russia is invading.
You cannot understand this war by visiting Moscow eight times and Kyiv zero times.
And you certainly cannot be an honest broker if you are willing to sit comfortably across the table from the aggressor but are too afraid to visit the victim because the aggressor might bomb you.
European leaders are showing what solidarity looks like.
Washington is showing what cowardliness and complacency look like.
Either that criminal bastard is a mafia asset, or the russian mafia have VERY compromising kompromat on him. He is a piece of garbage not worth the oxygen he breathes. So I would not be surprised if both reasons are true.
Once this piece of shit finally dies, I will spit on his grave (I might even piss on it and decorate it with a steaming log).
“I will spit on his grave (I might even piss on it
I’m sure there will be long lines for both.